


Dying of Love

by rewrittengirl



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Comfort, Death, Forgiveness, Illness, Loss, Love, Multi, Plot Twists, Solitude, instability, lonlieness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 12:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewrittengirl/pseuds/rewrittengirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Persian had seen the poor, unfortunate Erik for the last time."</p><p>Erik is not alone the first night, nor the nights after leading to his death. As his health declines and his masterwork Don Juan Triumphant remains unfinished, a sickly young man named Gabriel grants him the chance for the one thing he has craved his whole life, but denied himself the pleasure of -- companionship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dying of Love

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in a LONG time. I've been trying to come up with a unique storyline that hasn't been done to death, and I hope that you guys find my original character to be interesting! Thank you in advanced for reading, and enjoy! 
> 
> (side note: I haven't read the novel in a long time but I did start it again and read the end of the last chapter for reference. I've used the de Mattos version because it is easiest to access online).

The Persian had seen the poor, unfortunate Erik for the last time.

 

As he stepped into the cab that would take him to solitude, Erik directed the driver and mumbled strange words, directed at the moon perhaps. Even it was less lonely than he, sitting there among the stars.

 

For moments that stretched on as the carriage rattled toward the Opera, he continued to listlessly talk to _la lune_ before he noticed the other passenger.

 

In fact, if the driver had avoided that little dent in the cobbles that gave him a start when the wheels bumped over it, he wouldn’t have looked at the stranger. He might have even paid the cabbie and went on his way, never taking a second glance in front of him.

 

But there he was, a boy not much older than twenty-five, sleeping soundlessly in the vacant seat. He was covered in dirt, his hands muddy and covered by gloves whose fingers had been worn away by time. His blanket was of coarse wool, in all probability disease ridden and falling apart. How long he’d been asleep, Erik did not know. But he would not have hesitated to rouse his slumber had he not coughed himself awake at the jostling of the cab.

 

“Boy,” Erik began, his own breath faltering, as he hadn’t really expected to utter another word to a living soul for the rest of his life -- however long that might be. “If you’ve enough energy to speak, I pray you tell me what you’re doing in my cab!” he exclaimed in one tumultuous rhythm, a tone of annoyance the most he could convey with his own energy escaping him. Why make known his own sickness to the intruder?

 

The stranger took his shaking hands to his eyes and rubbed them before the stars dancing in them faded into place. All that was left was two blazing ones that only burned brighter when the carriage prattled behind a building, casting them both in shadow. He coughed again, but he did not seem at all uncomfortable. By comparison, Erik’s form was rigid and ready to force the boy out while the horse was still trotting, even though what strength he had was being devoted to breathing as evenly as possible.

 

“Eh… monsieur… _parlez-vous anglais_? I am very lacking in my French, if you’ll pardon…”

 

The fellow’s accent was American. Erik had heard an American speak once or twice, but he’d never seen one attempt to compromise his language. He was hardly impressed, but this development was unexpected. “Fine,” Erik breathed in English. His native French was nearly impossible to detect, as like other things he had mastered the boy’s language enough that perhaps he was born with it on his tongue. “I shall reiterate: _what are you doing in my cab?!_ ”

 

Now he was startled, as Erik’s voice assumed the fiery timber many had come to know. “It was cold… I was tired and I’m sick… What’s it to you?”

 

The man was flabberghasted, and though he was never at a loss for words except in the presence of--except in most extreme circumstances, it took him some moments to compose himself.

 

He did not have a very good answer to his cabmate’s question, and thus instead posed another one. “Where are you going?”

 

“Hell, probably. _Et toi_?”

 

The edge of Erik’s upper lip curled up, and his thumb and forefinger were inches away from the lasso stashed strategically on his person. Again, the question was ignored. “Are you dying?”

 

“You can’t ask people if they’re dying, how rude.”

 

He slid forward with all his strength and caught the boy’s throat in his hands. He was not rough about it, but he made sure his impudent little friend could not move a centimeter away. “ _If you do not answer my questions seriously, you will secure your place in Hell more quickly than that cough can take you!”_

 

As if to prove a point, the boy coughed right into Erik’s face, and if it hadn’t been for another jostling movement of the carriage, his neck would have been snapped in two. As it happened, The wretch grabbed Erik’s wrist and maneuvered his way out and into the seat Erik previously occupied. The opera ghost could only attribute this avoidance to his own poor constitution.

 

Rubbing his throat and shedding his ragged blanket, the boy revealed more about himself through his appearance and stature. Though he was clearly ill, he was now fully awake and composed himself rather well, and his clothing was well tailored and expensive looking, despite being old and tattered. It was in a style that befitted Americans, plain and once boastful colors, with only a little bit of decorative cloth around his throat for a loosened cravat. Erik could see his defiant eyes were a dull green in the lamplight they passed by, and freckles dotted his face in splotches that were almost too light to be noticed, but Erik noticed them. His hair was quite the mess, obviously not having bathed in weeks, but it was clearly a muddy, straight brown that might be suitable slicked back, and was probably once much shorter than it was now.

 

“Look, you’re clearly something of a baboon’s behind, so I don’t expect you to be courteous to me--” at this the fellow coughed something terrible, and with a shaking hand it was a wonder he ever sat straight enough to challenge Erik’s gaze. “But for god’s sake, it’s just a cab! Share it with me in peace?”

 

Erik touched his mask, slinking back into the seat and clutching his arms tight. He could feel himself want to cough, but he held the calamity inside of him so as to stay in some kind of position of power. As far as the American was aware, he was the only one who was ill. He should keep it that way for as long as possible.

 

Slowly, Erik nodded as a confirmation, and the boy nodded back and smoothed what he could of his hair. Now he was trying not to look at Erik. He could only surmise that the mask unnerved him, though he thought it wasn’t too visible in a night such as this.

 

He determined that he must be sitting with a runaway. That was the only clear explanation, but what he was running away from could only be understood through conversation. He looked at the moon again for some tangible advice. “Does Erik care to know?” he whispered in French, his mind up there with _la lune._

 

“Beg your pardon?” the boy interjected in English, and Erik remembered himself.

 

“Nothing,” he said in reply, fairly used to those overhearing his ramblings being confused. He folded his arms across his chest and examined the American further. “The ride is almost over. Unless you’ve money to pay the driver for an extended say, it would appear my stop is your stop, _n’est-ce pas_?”

 

Parched, but full lips wiggled out of line, and he rubbed his half-gloved hands together in contemplation. “Where is your stop then?”

 

“ _L’Opéra Garnier_ , if you must know.”

 

“Indeed I must, if I’m joining you.”

 

Erik squinted his eyes. “I tire of your brazenness. If there is one thing I intend to make perfectly clear, it is that this cab _rolling_ ,” here Erik made an aforementioned “rolling” gesture with his hands that indicated both demonstration and sarcasm, “to a stop will end our association, Monsieur… euh…”

 

“Gabriel, my name is Gabriel, thank you very much.”

 

Erik cleared his throat, which in hindsight was a bad idea. Suddenly the coughs he’d been holding in were tumbling out of him one by one, and he had to clutch the wall to his side for support, his other hand holding the mouth of his mask, despite the piece of cloth generally doing a sufficient job on its own. Gabriel, now named, began to laugh at Erik’s expense, and of course the opera ghost knew his hopes of retaining dominance were dashed.

 

“Are _you_ dying, Monsieur…?” he added while Erik continued to hack his lungs away.

 

He glared once his coughs began to quiet. _‘Dying… daroga… I am dying of… of love!’_

 

“We are all… dying tonight… in Paris, it would seem…”

 

The carriage finally stopped at the Rue Scribe side, and Erik did not immediately leap out. Not that he could to begin with, but in any case, Gabriel’s eyes were fixed firmly with his.

 

“I didn’t mean to laugh, I apologize,” he said, his thumbs twiddling away between his knees. Erik couldn’t stand the sight of it, so he kept going back to the eyes.

 

“An apology? My my, your mother taught you well, boy--”

 

“Gabriel!”

 

Pressing his knuckles to his forehead, Erik sighed. “Monsieur _Gabriel_ \--”

 

“You could call me Gabe, too, I guess, but then I don’t know you that well do I?”

 

“Yes, whatever monsieur,”

 

“Though of course I don’t know your name, so really maybe formalities would be best?”

 

_“Monsieur!”_

 

“Monsieur?”

 

They both turned their head to see the cabbie rubbing his fingers and knocking on the window for them to exit. “Yes, yes alright!” Erik stated, swinging open the door quickly and stepping out with as much grace as his energy would allow, not bothering to see if “Gabe” would follow behind him. He slipped the money he owed the cabbie into his grubby little palm when suddenly he heard a cry from behind him.

 

Gabriel’s forehead was masked by a sheen of sweat that only served to highlight how dirty he was, and he was quickly falling prey to whatever disease he possessed when he tumbled out of the cab. He tried to stand, but he couldn’t keep from fainting when the ground started to blend with the sky.

 

Erik’s first instinct was to back away from the sight, which he did. He knew far too well the alarm that his close proximity caused for people. But after being given a strange look from the cabbie, he huffed and carefully scooped the unconscious lad off of the ground. He merely helped him to stand, but still Gabriel tried to sink further. The cabbie, shaking his head and still eyeing Erik with suspicion, was already climbing back up to his perch and driving off, having gotten his money and probably knowing the sickly boy would give him no service.

 

So, Erik looped an arm around his waist and didn’t know what to do. His deepest scorn for the human race told him to dump Gabriel at a curb and return to the house on the lake. But, strangely enough, his heart was too full of the moon to do such a terrible deed tonight.

 

“I am dying of love Gabriel… That is the cause of my woes… Shall we join those lucky souls, those lovers of history that perish at the feet of Eros? Oh yes… yes let’s…”

 

Erik dragged the boy along and descended into that house of heaven and hell where an angel’s voice still echoes among the caverns.

 

 


End file.
